Email this article to a friend

The corporate foundations of Verizon, Pfizer, Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, American Express and JPMorgan Chase have collectively given over $25,000 to U.S. nonprofits that send money to Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, according to tax records from 2001 to 2016 reviewed by In These Times.

A large network of U.S. nonprofits raises millions of dollars annually to send to Israeli settlements, which are built on Palestinian land and are considered illegal under international law. Some Israeli settlers violently harass Palestinians and burn down their crops. Israeli settlers have also killed Palestinians.

Tax records reviewed by In These Times show that Israeli settlements have a surprising source of funds: the foundations of some of the most well-known U.S. corporations.

In addition, the corporate foundations of Verizon, Pfizer, Deutsche Bank, American Express and JPMorgan Chase have collectively given over $48,000 to Friends of the Israel Defense Forces, a U.S. nonprofit that sends millions of dollars to Israel’s military to support various enrichment activities—like education programs and recreational and cultural centers at army bases for soldiers.

Most of these funds come from corporate donations that match the donations of individual employees, though for some donations—all of Verizon’s and JP Morgan Chase’s in 2005, 2015 and 2016—it is not specified if the payments are matching grants. The corporate foundations encourage employee donations to nonprofits by promising that the companies will match donations to the nonprofits of their choice, doubling the total amount of money that go to those nonprofits.

It’s unclear whether the corporate foundations are aware their money is flowing to Israeli settlements built in defiance of international law. None of the corporations contacted by In These Times about these donations responded to requests for comment.

The vast majority of the donations from these corporations flow to relatively uncontroversial groups, like universities.

Corporations give money to charitable causes to boost their own image, allowing them to portray themselves as altruistic philanthropists rather than rapacious capitalists. Corporations typically fund their own foundations, which gives them an added benefit: a tax deduction.

But the donations to Israeli settlements draw the corporations into perhaps the most controversial conflict in the world, and seem to contradict pledges made by some of these foundations to fund charities that advance social justice and don’t discriminate. “We do not provide funding to any organization that discriminates based on race, religion, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, veteran, or disability status or espouses hate,” states Bank of America, in a statement on their website explaining what groups their Charitable Foundation Matching Gifts program supports.

Some Israeli settlers use violence against Palestinians, burning olive trees and killing civilians. In October 2018, Israeli settlers threw stones at a Palestinian car, smashing through a window and killing Aisha Rabi, a 47-year-old Palestinian mother of eight.

Settlers have also carried out stonings, Molotov cocktail attacks and beatings against Palestinians. Israeli settlements, and the infrastructure built to support them, block Palestinian freedom of movement, forcing Palestinians to take circuitous routes because they are barred from using the fastest routes on roads Israel built to benefit settlers. And Palestinians living in the occupied territories are barred from living in Israeli settlements.

Close observers of how settlements fundraise in the United States will notice some familiar names in the tax documents of these corporate foundations. Most of the donations go to large, wealthy organizations that raise the bulk of pro-settler cash in the United States.

The corporate foundations of Verizon, Pfizer, Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, American Express and JPMorgan Chase have together given over $15,000 to the One Israel Fund, a non-profit that gives cash to settlements across the occupied West Bank, including to settler security guards that harass Palestinians and block their freedom of movement. The corporate foundations of Pfizer, American Express and JPMorgan Chase have also given over $6,300 to the Central Fund of Israel, a non-profit that also sends millions of dollars to Israel, including large amounts to West Bank settlements. The Central Fund of Israel has drawn criticism for providing financial support to Honenu, a group that gives money to Israeli Jewish prisoners convicted of abusing or killing Palestinians.

In addition to funding illegal settlements, both the One Israel Fund and the Central Fund of Israel donated to a secretive Israeli government-linked initiative to attack the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, a global, Palestinian-led campaign calling for an end to Israel’s occupation, the right of return for Palestinian refugees, and equal rights for Palestinian citizens of Israel. According toThe Forward, the secretive initiative “will fund information gathering, influence campaigns, [and] pro-Israel advocacy,” though it’s unclear if the program has launched. The One Israel Fund and Central Fund of Israel also fund Im Tirtzu, an far-right Israeli nationalist movement that harasses Israeli leftists.

The corporate foundations have also given to smaller nonprofits that raise money for specific settlements or institutions.

The foundations of Verizon, Deutsche Bank and Pfizer sent nearly $1,500 to the American Friends of Yeshivot Bnei Akiva, a group that raises money for a network of religious Zionist schools across Israel and the occupied West Bank and Golan Heights.

In 2004, the Pfizer foundation gave $500 to American Friends of Bet El Yeshiva Center, a nonprofit run for many years by David Friedman, now the U.S. ambassador to Israel, that supports the settlement of Bet El, which sits deep in the occupied West Bank.

And the corporate foundations of JPMorgan Chase, Pfizer and Verizon have sent nearly $1,000 to the nonprofit American Friends of Elon Moreh, which supports the settlement of Elon Moreh, a community with a reputation for harassing Palestinian farmers.

“Foundations have to take responsibility and ownership over gifts that pass through them, whether through matching funds, donor-led giving, or other methods,” says Rebecca Vilkomerson, executive director of Jewish Voice for Peace, which advocates for Palestinian rights. “Groups that are clearly violating international human rights and international law should not be receiving corporate gifts.”

fuster,If you live in a city where Jews and Arabs get along - you damned sure don't live in the West Bank or Hebron or a half of dozen other places. The past is past let's move on - get the jerk settlers out of the West Bank and connect WB and Gaza and raise a flag. "Israel returned all of the occupied Egyptian territory" - and how was that accomplished? - Kissinger got a Nobel Peace prize, Sadat got shot, America paid through the nose and UN had troops in the Sinai for awhile.(which America paid for). Finally America bribed the Egyptian generals to close down their boundary with the occupied territories as tight as Israel wanted it - the Israelis always drive a hard bargain. This time rather than bribe them - let's just give the "settlers" their choice - become faithful Palestinian citizens or "Hit the Road, Jack - you know where you came from!"

Posted by richardvajs on 2019-03-20 09:46:35

I live in a city where Jews and Arabs do peacefully co-exist.I deplore the settlements but I'm not going to forget that the Arabs started two wars to destroy Israel and drive out the Jews before the settlements got started.

i also know that the Arabs pledged NO PEACE at the end of the 67 war

and I know that when Egypt made peace, Israel readily returned all the occupied Egyptian territory

Posted by fuster on 2019-03-20 09:24:48

fuster,Why don't we let the Israelis have their scumbags (Netanyahu, Gantz, Liebermann) and the Palestinians have theirs. The area was divided for just that reason. The Jews and the Arabs hate each other and can never coexist. That is why there is an Ireland and a Northern Ireland, and an India and a Pakistan. There is no intelligent reason for the Jewish settlers other than pure greed. Allowing the "settlements" to be inside what should be Palestine is a crime against nature.

Posted by richardvajs on 2019-03-20 04:51:10

of course, the Arabs are every bit as bigoted as the Israelis

and the Arabs were the ones who opted to begin the wars to drive the Jews into the sea in 47.

I despise the present-day policies of Israel, but I don't delude myself into thinking that the Palestinian Arabs have acted even as well as the Jews.

as vile as Israeli governments now are, they are still a damned bit better than Hamas or the PA

Posted by fuster on 2019-03-19 19:28:01

"Grand Mufti" who!!!, and where is his museum?

Posted by wbilct on 2019-03-19 13:39:27

OK, OK. What is the point? After you go back about 10 generations, the DNA gets mixed around. That is what is so obscene about this racist Jewish state. Who is to say that today's Palestinian doesn't have more ancient Jewish blood in him than the Jewish "settler" who feels he has the right to occupy the said Palestinian's land? Go back far enough, maybe the original Jew converted to Christianity, and then further converted to Islam. I know my ancestors were probably Jewish, I do have cousins living in Israel. I could probably qualify to be an Israeli - not that I would in 1,000 years - with my attitude, I'd receive many hints to move to Yemen.The important thing is to respect everyone's life and dignity. And that is what really pisses me off - some Jewish Israeli jerk thinking that he has the right to steal some Palestinian's land, just because of some religious bullshit that doesn't even pass the laugh test.

Posted by richardvajs on 2019-03-19 12:57:53

in comparison to the Grand Mufti, Jabotinski mattered little

Posted by fuster on 2019-03-19 12:37:13

btw, Germania doesn't really "work" so well.

France was settled by Germanic tribes as much as was present-day Germany....

not to mention that the Angles and Saxons are also Germanic tribes who settled west of France on that island across the Channel

ARABS were NOT around Jerusalem at that time...... before his lifetime the Persians allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem, ending the Babylonian Exile and the Second Temple of the Jews was built around 516 BC.

Persians and Jews, not Arabs...

please do the reading because you are confused and theorizing without being in possession of the facts

Posted by fuster on 2019-03-19 11:06:09

"Jabotinsky mattered little"

right, that's why he honored with a museum!!

google, "beit jabotinsky tel aviv"

Posted by wbilct on 2019-03-19 10:56:25

fuster,OK, but we agree that the ancient name of the territory was Palestine - Correct? Well, then anybody who calls themselves Palestinian were probably around from the start. Hell, even the Israelis refer to them as Palestinians - Correct? If so, what is YOUR point? (other than try to sow doubt).

Posted by richardvajs on 2019-03-19 09:58:45

applying a place-name to a group of people doesn't describe their ethnicity.

Palestinians could have been comprised of Turkic people, Persians or Jews or Canaanites rather than people from the Arabian desert

Posted by fuster on 2019-03-19 08:54:59

"is a name a description"?Works for Germany, Russia, China, America,.....To be perfectly straight, the name could be the Philistines (Oxford Dictionary definition - member of a people of ancient Palestine). The import is that for people like me - who do not carry this silly mental image of an "Israeli" as a holy shepherd in a striped robe holding a lamb around his neck - is that if an ancient historian, who wrote about a lot of strange, and off-beat people, did not mention the supposed "glories" of Israel and Judah - well - they were probably non-existent.

Posted by richardvajs on 2019-03-19 08:44:53

sonny, you're an ignorant ashhole who has read very little.... and knows even less.

Jabotinsky mattered little, far less than the Grand Mufti who joined with Hitler and the Huseini clan from which the mufti came.

read about the Jerusalem Riots of 1920.

read about the PanArabist movement of the early 20th century and the ties to fascism.

get a better education prior to posting more of your revisionist bullshht.

the Palestinian Arabs and their Arab League buddies were the ones who opted for war rather than peaceful partition.

that they were soundly defeated was no tragedy, merely a result of a terrible mistake on their part.

Posted by fuster on 2019-03-19 01:04:23

"Arab attack on the Jews"au contraire, you mean the Zionist invasion of Palestine!!!

Read "Churchill and the Jews: a lifelong friendship" by Gilbert, Martin, to see the ground work laid for the invasion abet by Churchill.

Read "Jabotinsky Iron Wall,pdf", to read the "Mens Rea", the "smoking gun" of the Zionist's criminal intent of the colonization of Palestine.

Google "deir yassin, lydda death march" and the ethnic cleansing of 3/4 million in order to attain a Jewish majority.

Posted by wbilct on 2019-03-18 20:51:20

I don't beny that the Arab attack on the Jews turned out to be disastrous for them.

I affirm it

Posted by fuster on 2019-03-18 18:40:19

and what is the import of that?

Palestine was the name of the area and he calls the people living there to be Palestinians?

is a name a description?

Posted by fuster on 2019-03-18 18:39:21

I don't if you're alert to anythingincluding your own empty-headed idiocy

Posted by fuster on 2019-03-18 18:33:52

Nakba denier!!!

Posted by wbilct on 2019-03-18 13:59:08

fuster,The world's first historian (a Greek, Herodotus) wrote a rambling history of the World about 2,500 years ago. He mentioned the Palestinians as being the natives of the area then. He never mentioned the fabled (accent on "fabled")Jewish empires of David, Solomon, or any other of the Sunday School baloney.

Posted by richardvajs on 2019-03-18 12:20:56

google, "Ishmael - wikipedia"

Posted by wbilct on 2019-03-18 11:31:09

Hasbara alert.

Posted by yomama on 2019-03-18 11:03:13

Suarez isn't an historian, he's a propagandist....and full of shht.

he's also incapable of brushing away the truth that the terrorism began in 1920 when Arabs rioted and began lynching Jews

Posted by fuster on 2019-03-18 10:01:47

google "fiction" & "fable"

Posted by fuster on 2019-03-18 09:51:45

google, "Ishmael"

Posted by wbilct on 2019-03-18 08:28:55

"The first mention of Arabs is from the mid-ninth century BCE as a tribal people in eastern and southern Syria, and the north of the Arabian Peninsula."

google, "arabs - wikipedia"

Posted by wbilct on 2019-03-18 07:01:04

"terrorist scum"

State of Terror: How Terrorism Created modern Israel by Suarez, Thomas

Posted by wbilct on 2019-03-18 06:50:31

Arabs are native to the Persian Gulf, not the Med

Posted by fuster on 2019-02-24 13:41:40

Wrong again. Palestinians are a semitic people.

Posted by Northern_Witness on 2019-02-24 13:17:04

The only reason Arabs have a history in Palestine is because they invaded a couple of thousand years ago.

Posted by fuster on 2019-02-24 12:59:29

The only reason Jews have a history in Palestine is because they invaded a few thousand years ago. The current creeping invasion by Zionists of Palestine began in the 1880's and is continuing. The U.N. granted statehood to the invasion because of 6,000,000 Jews killed in WWII but forgot about forgot about the 9,000,000 LGBT, Roma, physically or mentally disabled who also were murdered in concentration camps. Money talks. But not content with the land bestowed on it, Israel continues to this day to take over additional Palestinian land. Zionism is as disgusting as Nazism or the Chinese persecution of Christian and Uighur religious groups.

Posted by Northern_Witness on 2019-02-24 05:55:37

the Jews have never stolen anything in Palestine.

the UN granted them sovereignty over a part of Palestine....and immediately the Palestinian Arabs and their allies attempted to wipe the Jews out.

Charles, you're rather full of shht or quite, quite ignorant

Posted by fuster on 2019-02-21 18:54:22

alex kane is an utter ashhole,

no one should be funding Israel's settlements, but $25,000 is not any big contribution at all

the US gives millions in food aid to support Gaza and Hamas, terrorist scum, take full advantage of that

there is not much at all that $25,000 buys

Posted by fuster on 2019-02-21 18:51:56

Zionists are immoral scum. It is sickening to watch my nations leaders accept bribes or adopt ideology that allows them to squander American blood and treasure supporting the Jewish theft of Palestine and the persecution of the Palestinian people.